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The Foot Island Chain
The Acalan Island Chain The Acalan island chain (also Known as The Old Kym Court dynastically, and Isla by most mainlanders) is the name given to the set of islands located just east of the Southern Kymurian Lands. The people of the island trace their history back to Ancient Kym itself. The name Acalan is supposedly heralded from one of the tribes who followed Bai Han. Due to their relative isolation the cultures upon the islands are thought to be an authentic look at what the Southern Kymurian Lands used to be like. The people who inhabit the islands are for all intents and purposes the same as their mainland counterparts who inhabit modern day SKL however they would prefer to distinguish themselves from their mainland brethren. Traditionally (more ceremonially) the head of the Acalan state was the royal family located in New Kym, concealed in their many palaces. However this is just a facade, for real power is held in the hands of the Wandans (of which there are seven), the two most important Wandans being that of Chow-Nhi and more critically that of Korg. Korg (which gets its name from the now extinct dwarven settlers who orginally inhabited the city) is the single most critical city in the Acalan island chain due to the sheer volume of wealth it brings in from foreign lands. History Originally the islands were loosely under control from the mainland as they had descended from one of the original tribes to follow Bai Han and therefore their allegiance was to Hokasa; however following the fall of the mainland into Kymurian hands, the islands effectively became independent, whether they wanted it or not. Over time the islanders began to believe that they were in fact the only true descendants of Bai Han left, and as such they have ever since claimed all of the lands settled by the original tribes to follow Bai Han (they assert the idea that their mainland counterparts were 'corrupted' by Kymurian ways and that they are the only Southern Kymurians left to rekindle Bai Han's flames). Kymuria had all of mainland Panguilla under its control but still believed that the Acalan island chain was part of SKL, and thus rightfully theirs post victory, however no occupation force or invasion was ever sent to the Acalan island chain. Kymuria insisted that the Acalan island chain was sovereign Kymurian territory, and the Acalan island chain claimed it was independent. This led to a century of an unofficial and uneventful war which resulted in numerous Kymurian cargo vessels being sunk by Acalan Island Galleys. Over time Kymuria's power began to stagnate and eventually wane, they lacked the charismatic leaders of their golden age and they had abandoned their roots, as there were no more perceivable threats the Kymurians became decadent and blinded themselves. And as Kymuria began to decline its loss of SKL became inevitable, The Acalan Island Chain attempted an ambitious invasion of all of SKL. Under leadership of Adachi Song the war went ahead. Adachi Song Adachi Song was possibly the greatest leader in all of Acalan's history. Adachi was born as the eldest son of a Wandan named Yokoi Song (Wandan being the rough equivalent of a Kymurian duke). Yokoi Song was the Wandan of Chow-Nhi a wealthy port city which drew most of its wealth from Anjuin commerce coming in from the north. Adachi was a privileged boy, he had most of the benefits one can expect a noble to receive: a great education in New Kym, an arranged marriage with a beautiful maiden named Sako Wuying, daughter of the Wandan of Kan-dow, he even had his own residence at the age of just twelve. Yet he was in Yokoi's words "a burdensome failure", Adachi completely failed at school, he was more interested in gloating about his wealth and blurting out just how affluent his father was. The only two things Adachi seemed to take interest in was drinking and his wife, Sako; which is most surprising considering she seemed to be moderate and gentle by nature. Although Adachi and Sako did not seem to get along at first (in fact it appeared Sako threatened to return back home) it seems post marriage that Sako enjoyed being around the sprightful and buffoonish youth which was Adachi. Upon Yokois death, Adachi's mother hung herself and Adachi entered an almost two year state of grief and despair which threw him further into his already bad habits of drinking, gambling, et cetera. Eventually he lifted himself out of his slumber and assigned all of his estates to his wife and simply left the Acalan island chain by joining a mercenary guild to go off fighting in foreign lands for adventure (probably wishing not to return home). Not much is known about what he did in those 5 to 6 years he was away fighting and battling but when he did return home he was a changed man. Adachi never told anyone save his wife what he did on his travels but it produced a new Adachi, one of courage and vigour and most importantly it seems he lost his extreme levels of absurd arrogance. Adachi became even closer with his wife Sako and became attached to fishing for reasons unbeknown to modern scholars. It was also around this time that the couple had their only child, a son named Asano Song. Adachi came back from his travels an intense opportunist, constantly taking risks and plunging into ventures which sometimes resulted in great triumphs like the redirection of further Anjuin trade to Chow-Nhi rather than through the Darrow Straits and sometimes they were complete blunders like the purchase of the tranquil, beautiful (and most importantly) worthless isle of Orin just north of Chow-Nhi, which almost bankrupted his realm. Adachi was the rising star in Acalan, unpredictable, charismatic and only 26. Adachi eventually (under pressure from his father in law) entered the gruesome world which was Acalan politics. Adachi was a warrior, he had waged wars on continents people had never heard of, yet he was absolutely useless at fighting any political battle, he had administrative experience to the extent that he kept control of Chow-Nhi, but the politics of New Kym was not Chow-Nhi. While most in politics had decades of experience lobbying and persuading, Adachi knew how to decapitate someone with a fangtian ji. Needless to say, politics was not for the young Adachi, his political career was going down as a plummeting failure; however he was miraculously saved by rumours in the royal court which quietly reported that Kymurian garrisons in the Southern Kymurian Lands were withdrawing and that the royal family desired a swift recapture of what they still claimed. Adachi was both an opportunist and a soldier, and so after months of conferring and gathering an army was assembled to recapture Acalan's core land which was SKL. Adachi was the prime candidate as a general for such a force and was subsequently chosen so. The army gathered derived from every Wandan around Acalan and also included the moderately sized Royal Army of Acalan. Adachi was possibly the only man in the army who had any experience of warfare at all, he had under his command soldiers who had never left their home province let alone the Acalan Island chain. While the army was grotesquely under experienced in any form of warfare, what Adachi did have under his command was one of the best navies the world has ever seen. The Royal Acalan Navy had experience, training, equipment and most importantly funding beyond compare. The Adachi War The war started with vicious and fierce raids all along the Southern Kymurian coastline and this would continue for the whole length of the war. Raids were carried out in brutal fashion, all men over 15 who didn't escape were slaughtered and the rest of the village's inhabitants were forced off the land or enslaved. The village would then systematically be razed by the hardy marines of the Acalan navy, they would seize what was useful and burn what was not. The Kymurian fleet was vast and well equipped but it could not successfully operate with these unconventional tactics being deployed by their adversaries, Kymurian frigates found it hard to destroy Acalan junk and centipede ships which could sail in extremely low waters and could go upstream through rivers to raid settlements. The Kymurians attempted to cut off Acalan from her trade routes but this too turned out to be a failure as Kymurian warships could not operate very efficiently so far away from supplies. And this was the state of the war for first few phases just pilfer, plunder and flee. Adachi did not move any of his soldiers, instead he just waited to see how the Kymurians would react, constantly probing a response out of them, minor raids for instance on Kymurian fishing villages or raiding up a river. The Kymurians were overstretched as they attempted to shield every settlement from the Acalan assault. Eventually Adachi made his move, embarking all of his troops, he sailed straight for Xiphron Bay, Xiphron Bay was the single most important city for the Kymurian war effort, it was the only deep water port the Kymurians had in the southern regions, if it was lost supply lines would shatter and reinforcing navies and armies would have to arrive all the way from St. Xavier's Port countless leagues to the north. The massive armada of incoming ships which was the Royal Acalan Navy was spotted almost instantaneously along the north-eastern coast of SKL. Yet the Kymurians could only watch as the fleet sailed past them, too dispersed to fight back and not enough time to consolidate in Xiphron Bay, the Acalan navy disembarked on the beaches and shores around the city and attacked it straight away. Some of the navy sailed straight into the port itself and the experienced, brutal and ferocious marines disembarked and began a city wide reaving. The chaos which ensued was not a battle, there was no single battle line or any form of order, instead brutal fighting took place in stables, houses, marketplaces and on the stairs leading up to critical buildings; and it was this kind of fighting which favoured the Acalan marines who commonly used small spark pistols and blunt weapons. With a hammer in one hand and a pistol in the other, the marines ran rampant on the streets of Xiphron Bay viciously bludgeoning anything which dared to move along the streets, avenues and roads. The marines eventually forced their way to a gatehouse where, upon disembowelling the Kymurian defenders, managed to open the gate. Acalan regular soldiers then also joined the fray and they too joined their brethren in butchering the city. The city was overrun in mere hours and the only building left in Kymurian hands was their barracks, a large crowd had gathered outside of the barracks desperately attempting to enter the haven inside, in time however when the Acalan marines found out that there were still Kymurians in the city they rushed to greet them with axes and polearms. The crowd became more and more desperate as shreiks and wailing could be heard at the rear of the congregation as Acalan marines began to hack their way through towards the large wooden gateway, the crowd turned into a mob and eventually forced their way into the barracks where they along with all of the Kymurian defenders were massacred in their droves. The defenders attempted to stem the flow by just barraging the crowd indiscriminately but it had little effect on the resulting slaughter. After the bodies were piled up and burnt, the marines hoisted up Acalan's flag above the barracks signifying their victory. Adachi scuppered all of the Kymurian fleet (all that was left most turned tail and fled seeing the Acalan fleet) having no need for large frigates. Rather than take control of the port city Adachi instead decided to loot it, loading all of the plunder which could be carried onto the ships and destroying what could not. All that could be used against Adachi's men was either seized or destroyed also. Adachi knew that a Kymurian counterattack was inevitable and the result of such a counterattack would most likely favour the better equipped and more numerous Kymurian army. Adachi instead began to fight a guerrilla campaign attacking and pillaging the towns and hamlets now cut off thanks to the fall Xiphron bay, the dispersed Kymurian forces garrisoning these areas had not received orders in over a week, and so they were picked off one by one. Southern Kymurian separatists eventually began an uprising against Kymuria for independence, the separatists originally believed that the Acalan forces were assisting them, but Adachi received orders from New Kym which stated that these separatists were now also an enemy and should be treated as such. Hokasa the capital of SKL eventually came under siege from the separatist forces, the Kymurians were on their last legs, they only just about held onto border regions, some important coastal settlements and Hokasa. Adachi Song tried to avoid conflict with the separatists as much as possible, but he could only do so for a short time. The Acalan army was tired and exhausted, incoming supplies from Acalan was few and far between and the army had to become as self sufficient as possible. Most of their equipment was battered and old from the three year campaign they had been on, however what once was an inexperienced rabble of scared boys was now a battle hardened fighting force who had received their training not in the barracks but on the battlefield, the original fighting force of 20,000 soldiers had lost close to (if not exceeding) half its fighting strength, and as a result everyday of campaigning was a drain on resources which could not easily be replaced. Adachi had to pick his battles carefully, which is why (when compared to other conflicts on Panguilla) there weren't actually that many major battles. The separatist forces had the luxury of drawing their manpower from a larger and closer at hand pool. Adachi most likely knew that the war was futile now that the separatists had come into the equation but his orders were unyielding, and so he fought a guerrilla campaign of booby-traps, snares and ambushes until he could eventually pull together some semblance of a strong enough force for a desperate push against the separatists. The Separatists had successfully pushed the Kymurians out of most of SKL, all that was left was a few border regions and the desperate Hokasa garrison, still fighting with 10% of its forces left after a whole year of beseigement. Adachi marched on Hokasa with only 6,000 men in a futile attempt to attack the separatists seiging the city of which there were close to 25,000 men. Adachi spent a month with his men hacking his way through the foliage of the jungles to position himself west of the city. Using captured Kymurian banners and ensigns, in order to appear as a relief force, Adachi attacked the outlying separatist camps around Hokasa. The separatists were caught most off guard by this attacking force. The Acalan force swiftly move through the enemy camps routing the separatists back towards Hokasa. Over 15,000 separatist men were fleeing in the chaos, The whole separatist army almost broke from the field in the ensuing chaos. As the Hokasan garrison wrongly thought that this was a full fledged Kymurian army coming to relieve them, they sallied out and also attacked the separatists. After a short amount of time the Acalan force moved out of the sparsely wooded area and into the rice paddies which surrounded Hokasa, they were severely slowed by the shin high water which they had to wade through to reach their adversaries, as a result of the loss of momentum and chaos the separatists began to realise that firstly it was not Kymurians that were attacking them and secondly whoever was attacking them had no more than 3,000 men left in the field. The separatists quickly began organising themselves and counter-attacked back down the banks and right into the rice paddies, the previously green cultivated land was turned into pools of blood, sweat and melees which lasted for over an hour. The separatists eventually won but it was not really a victory for either side as casualties had been extremely high and not much had been achieved by either force. The casualties of the battle are unknown as many of the soldiers drowned in the paddies and bodies were extremely hard to recover, but it is thought to be quite high as that year Hokasan farmers reported a glut of rice output. Adachi surrendered to the separatist commander named Li Hainam the following day with only 500 men left (the others having died, deserted or gone missing). The separatist commander agreed to safe passage for his men in return for a full withdraw of all Acalan forces from SKL. SKL did indeed achieve independence but not under Acalan control. Newly independent SKL requested reunification with the Acalan Island Chain, however the Islanders refused claiming that they were the true SKL state. Kymuria officially recognised the Acalan Island Chain as SKL and her right to rule over all of geographical SKL due to tensions with the mainland SKL (actual SKL). Over the centuries that followed the Islanders began to become more prosperous than their mainland counterparts due to their prime position to trade with both Outmost and Anjuin. Although the size of the island chain was moderate its economic power was nothing to be scoffed at. This led to serious concern in mainland SKL, the rapid growth of the islands' economy, expansion of its navy past that of the mainlands and also the fact that it still, all these centuries later, claimed all of SKL worried the government of Hokasa. This worry was eventually eclipsed by the rise of Kymuria again under Cyroth the Great. During the Great Eastern War the Acalan Island Chain aligned itself with the Kymurians, the islanders participated heavily on the naval front, fighting both Anjuin and SKL fleets. After many naval engagements the islanders invaded the Diao Island Chain off SKL along with a few other islands. After SKL fell Cyroth granted all islands which had been invaded by the Foot Islanders to them, however all of the land occupied was later ceded back to Kymuria due to revolts (save for Congresra which successfully declared independence). Since the Great Eastern War neutrality has been maintained, the islands' economy has been flourishing ever since it aligned itself economically with Kymuria. In modern times as the Great Panguillan War rages there are those in Saffira who fear that the foot islanders will attempt to reassert control over all of SKL due to the fact they still claim it all, these are however wild conspiracies and are unrealistic considering the amount of trade between the two nations.